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A Gaming Diary
Full Auto Demo
Jan 26th
It’s a new downloadable demo for the 360. It’s ace… for an unfinished product… and for four minutes of fun.
If they can get the slowdown sorted out prior to release – and they damn well should – then it could be really good fun. It’s a racing game with games and explosions and lots of stuff on and off the track to blow the crap out of. So I played through it three times and had a blast. But will it be fun doing that over and over again in the full game? Burnout managed it for a couple of games, so maybe Full Auto will be able to sustain itself for at least one. I guess this is where reviews come in handy.
There’s a good chance it’ll go on my ‘under twenty quid’ list, along with Condemned and Amped 3.
Marble Blast Ultra
Jan 26th
It’s a new download on Xbox Live Arcade. You roll a marble around and pick up gems and then head to the exit. It’s a bit Monkey Ballish, yes.
I went through the levels in the demo, then unlocked the full game without a second thought, did all twenty beginner levels under par and then leapt into a quick online game, where I rolled around badly until I lost my connection.
Animal Crossing: Wild World
Jan 26th
So, today was a big day in Venture.
I’d left all the trees alone for a few days so I could tell which were fruit trees and which weren’t. Today I went round and every non-foreign-fruit or cedar tree got chopped down. Well, every one on the east side of the river. I’m keeping the small amount of land on the west side for natural trees. Then every stump got dug up and replaced with a foreign fruit. Saplings everywhere! Then I went round and picked all the foreign fruit I had still sat on trees and made about 100,000 bells.
Took about two and a half hours in the end, but if I’m willing to pick everything I should be able to make a fair bit of money without playing the stalk market.
Dragon Quest VIII
Jan 25th
Another couple of hours.
It’s a really great game and tonight the time between saves was pretty much perfect. I wouldn’t turn it on if I had less than two hours to play, though.
Anyway, I got past the sticky bit and went through a ‘dungeon’ and – because of my wrongness last night – I think I know exactly what to do when I restart tomorrow. So everything’s worked out okay.
Dragon Quest VIII
Jan 24th
Well, Boling Point and Ridge Racer 6 arrived today. I was trying to decide which to play first when I remembered how many unfinished games I have. And not games that are unfinished because they’re too rubbish or too hard, but games I love but have stopped playing.
So I leapt back into Dragon Quest VIII, which was dangerously close to being left forever for no reason. Played it for another hour and a half, but now I’m stuck. I’ve got to go somewhere, but I’ve no idea how to get there. I don’t think I got any clues when I last played a few weeks ago that I’ve forgotten, but it’s a possibility.
I think I may have missed an entrance to a passage somewhere I was a while back. I’ll go back and check, but the game’s stupid save system means I haven’t got time to investigate properly tonight. I wish there was just a quicksave option you could use at any time.
Animal Crossing: Wild World
Jan 23rd
And finally this evening p’anther from Teacozy came round to play and we had some tea and then went downstairs and listened to music.
Best.
Midway Arcade Treasures 3
Jan 23rd
And then I remembered that this arrived from Play this morning, so I decided to play it.
The main game I bought it for is Rush 2049. I was a bit worried because everyone’s been saying it’s rubbish, but it turns out everyone’s wrong. The graphics haven’t aged very well and, yes, the handling is incredibly twitchy (especially on the default settings) but that’s not really important. The important thing is that the track design is as great as it ever was. I spent half an hour on one track, just searching for shortcuts, alternate routes and coins. (There are coins dotted around the track which disappear permanently when you collect them. I’m not sure if there’s any reason to collect beyond wanting to, but I want to.) I came last in every race and couldn’t find a way into a lot of the shortcuts I could see, but I had fun. Fun! Then I spent ten minutes in stunt mode and managed to miss every coin I tried to collect. Never mind. I’ll be back.
I then tried Hydro Thunder, because it’s meant to be the good game in the pack. And it’s surprisingly excellent. The first track is short and boring, but after that there are huge open tracks with lots of detail and the game bursts into life. It actually feels like racing on water, with the all the necessary bumpiness. I played it enough to unlock the Medium tracks and then quit out.
I get the feeling that either of those games would be worth the fiver I paid for the disc and there are a fair few more on there, too. (Though they’re probably rubbish.)
OutRun 2
Jan 23rd
So I played OutRun 2 instead, for the first time in ages. I went through the easiest route a couple of times, scraping in to the finish both times. I’ve lost a lot of skill.
Then i tried the hardest route and should have made it, but I completely mucked up the first corner of the final stage and ended up driving into barriers and skidding around for a good five seconds. So I only made it to the final corner before the time ran out. Gutted.
Still, it’s a glorious experience every time. I just wish the new version was coming to the 360, rather than the Xbox. I’m really noticing the softness of the low-res pictures these days, now I’m running my PC and 360 through the TV at higher resolutions. Never mind, though.
Incidentally, OutRun 2 is my favourite game of all time and my profile says I’ve only played for seventeen and a half hours in total. Add in the time played in the arcade and on my other Xbox and it’s still probably under twenty hours. I find that incredible, but it’s because every time I tunr it on it’s just for on, two or three runs through arcade mode, which takes no time at all.
DOA MIA
Jan 23rd
So I started up my old Xbox, wanting to play Dead or Alive: Ultimate to see how much I enjoyed it, to help decide if I want DoA 4 or not. But it wasn’t on my hard drive, which is odd as I definitely remember copying it there. So I looked for the box on the shelf and couldn’t find until, right at the bottom of the pile, hidden by the coffee table, I found it. But the disc wasn’t inside. So I got my old CD storage folder out because I went through a phase of storing my games in there. I found the DoA 3 disc, the DoA: Xtreme Beach Volleyball disc, but no DoA: Ultimate disc. Looked back at the box I’d found and it wasn’t the Ultimate box it was the Volleyball box. Gah.
So I can only assume I must’ve traded in DoA: Ultimate at some point and consequently deleted it from my Xbox’s hard drive, but I’ve got no memory of doing so. Most odd. And annoying.
SWAT 4 Demo
Jan 22nd
Oooh, now this was a surprise.
First off it looks lovely. I’m sure it doesn’t do as many clever things as FEAR but, to my mind, it may look even better. Secondly, it seems to mix things up a bit whenever you try a mission. At least, I found a hostage in a different place when I played the second time after get killed very quickly first time.
The only problem was that I didn’t really know what I was doing and thought I’d killed/arrested everyone, but the mission was still ongoing. I found a status screen and apparently I have to report on everybody’s status and pick up all the bad guys’ weapons. And I couldn’t be arsed to go back and do all that, so I quit out.
But it’s very tense and the interface makes ordering the squad around so simple that even I found it easy enough to find my way around. Now if I can remember to pick up weapons and things as I go next time then it’ll be ace.
I’m really very impressed indeed.
There’s an expansion out soon, which is what prompted me to download the demo of the game. I wonder if it’s on budget yet?
